Mingtiandi leads off its first set of people moves for May with the appointment of new leadership for one of Asia Pacific’s longest-standing investment strategies. Also making our list this week are board level moves at Ping An Insurance, China Aoyuan Group and India’s first publicly listed real estate investment trust.

M&G Real Estate announced this past week that it has appointed Jason Leong as deputy fund manager for its core Asia Pacific property strategy. Based in Singapore, Leong joins M&G from Australian fund manager Investa, where he had spent 11 years including serving most recently as group executive and head of investment management overseeing $7.9 billion in assets under management. In his new role Leong will report to Richard van den Berg, who heads the firm’s flagship APAC strategy.

Ping An Insurance announced to the Hong Kong stock exchange on 26 April that Jason Yao Bo has resigned as co-chief executive officer and executive vice president, as well as from his other roles with the mainland financial titan. Now 52, the New York University graduate began serving as a senior vice president with Ping An in 2009 and had been appointed as one of the company’s three co-chief executives in 2020. Yao has now been redesignated as a non-executive director of the company, according to the announcement.

China Aoyuan Group said on 27 April that Guo Zining has resigned from his positions as executive director, vice chairman, chief executive officer and authorised representative of the mainland developer with effect from that same day. Guo, who is the brother of Aoyuan chairman Guo Zi Wen, is leaving his top leadership positions just over two months after resigning as non-executive director and chairman of Aoyuan Healthy Life Group, the property management subsidiary of China Aoyuan Group. Company veteran Tan Yi has now been named as an executive director of China Aoyuan Group to fill the board vacancy.

Blackstone-backed Embassy Office Parks REIT said on 27 April that it has appointed Aravind Maiya as chief executive officer of the real estate investment trust from 1 July. Maiya is taking over the top leadership post at India’s first publicly listed REIT from Vikaash Khdloya who is leaving on 30 June. The hiring brings Maiya back to Embassy Office Parks REIT, where he had served as chief executive officer from 2019 through June of last year, before being named CFO of Tata Realty and Infrastructure.

Swire Properties informed the Hong Kong exchange on 28 April that it has appointed Angela Zhu Changlai as an independent non-executive director on its board from effect from 9 May. Zhu, who had worked for IKEA Group in a variety of roles from 1996 through 2022, had served most recently as a consultant and executive in residence with Warburg Pincus Asia and had been global commercial director for IKEA Retail Services from 2018 through 2021 and CEO of IKEA (China) Investment from 2013 through 2018.

Miramar Hotel and Investment Company on 27 April announced to the Hong Kong bourse that its vice chairman David Sin Wai Kin had passed away at the age of 94. Sin who had started off as a pawn broker in Hong Kong had risen to prominence in Hong Kong as an early business partner of New World Development chairman Cheng Yu-teng and had served as an independent non-executive director of Miramar Hotel.

Tim Alpe has left his role as chief executive officer of Hong Kong-based RedBox Storage after over two years leading the Brookfield Asset Management-owned self-storage firm, according to a LinkedIn update. In a post, Alpe said that he is returning to the hospitality industry and is now managing director of Hong Kong-based hospitality investment and asset management startup Trio Capital.

Singapore-based property marketing group PropertyGuru said on 26 April that its has appointed Helen Snowball as chief people officer. Snowball joins the property listings provider from JLL in Singapore where the former Coca-Cola executive had served as global head of people solutions and experience since early last year after previously spending more than two years as head of human resources for Asia Pacific.

If you know of other Asia real estate professionals changing their jobs, getting promoted or just doing something exciting, please contact us here at Mingtiandi.